The future of the TabLinks Safari Extension

A long time ago I wrote an extension for Safari called TabLinks. It simply generated Markdown lists of links to all the currently opened tabs. It’s been updated a few times over the years, but recent changes to Apple’s handling of Safari extensions has discouraged me from further updates.

I didn’t realize how many people used and relied on the extension until it was suddenly no longer available. Since the release of macOS Mojave, Apple now requires that extensions be released as apps through the Mac App Store, codesigned and approved by Apple. I could do this, but it’s a lot of extra effort and it’s a pretty simple extension for all that work.

So, what I’m proposing is moving the functionality outside of Safari. There’s already a Service in the Markdown Service Tools that grabs all of the open Safari tabs and inserts a list of them into your text editor. The only thing that TabLinks really added to that was templating, allowing the format of the list to be customizable.

If I expanded that Service to allow templating and the storing of templates in persistent preferences, I think it would cover the needs of those who used TabLinks. What I’m curious about, and putting forth as a question to be answered in the comments is: are there other aspects of TabLinks that you use and would miss? Are there additional features you’d like to add?